Hezekiah William Foote

Hezekiah William Foote (17 December 1813-29 January 1899) was a Mississippi state representative and state senator, a Confederate States Army colonel during the American Civil War, a co-founder of Vanderbilt University, and an ancestor of Shelby Foote.

Biography
Hezekiah William Foote was born in Chester County, South Carolina in 1813, and he moved to Macon, Noxubee County, Mississippi as a teenager before becoming a lawyer. He became the first settler to raise pedigree cattle in the state, and he started a newspaper, The Macon Intelligencer. He went on to serve as the county's chancery clerk and as a district judge, and he joined the Whigs and then the Constitutional Union Party. During the American Civil War, he served as a colonel in the Confederate States Army, fighting at the Battle of Belmont and the Battle of Shiloh. After the war, he served in the State House and State Senate and as a bank president, and he came to own four plantations and co-founded Vanderbilt University. He died in Macon in 1899.